Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps I will speak to what is important to all. Let us talk about defence broadly and the importance of it because that is why the Senators are here. All of us are having this debate to try to enhance Ireland's defence capacity and our defence structures at this time.

Of course, it is fair to say the Government has made some strides in Ireland's security and defence policy with the implementation of the Commission on the Defence Forces report and the Consultation Forum on International Security Policy. There is broad support generally for increased co-operation with the various EU programmes while maintaining our policy of military neutrality. As for areas such as resilience, cyber, hybrid and critical undersea infrastructure, I do not see how anybody could argue with our better capacity in all of these different areas. These are pieces of critical awareness for us. We face real security and defence challenges and we need to learn from and co-operate with other like-minded countries to be able to provide our own sovereign defence. There is simply no question about that. There is, I would say, a new urgency for us all to focus on that as a day-to-day part of our political conversation and we should not step back from or be afraid of that.

At every meeting I go to as Minister for European affairs there is a total focus on security - one that does not reflect the dialogue that we have generally in these Houses.European security is, unfortunately, at the top of every agenda. The establishment of a possible new commissioner for defence industries is something that Ireland is going to need to think about and lean into because that would be very important if it gives Irish companies the opportunity to participate in the receipt of EU funding or in ways that can generate capacity, including technological capacity, and participation for those industries. It is also important that Ireland has the capacity to access materials and weaponry in a way that is most cost-efficient and also efficient in terms of the supply chain. We still need to have military hardware in order to defend ourselves. It is incumbent upon us to set out that the basic defence of our sovereign territory is strategically important.

We must not be afraid to describe our defence spending and our ambition to spend more. Senators are aware that our current spend is far too low and is going to have to increase. We can look at other neutral countries, such as Austria, for example, which spends 1% of its GDP on its defence budget of €3.3 billion, whereas Ireland's defence budget in 2023 was 0.2% of GDP or 0.33% of GNI. It is so far below, and we have so far to get, but we will do it through recruitment and the renovation of housing and capital spending where we can. None of us should be afraid to describe the security and defence challenges we have as an island nation and a tech centre and the need to co-operate further on resilience, cyber, hybrid and a range of different matters to help with the basic defence of our sovereign territory. This conversation forms part of that very broad context. I look forward to Committee Stage.